


A Name to Last For All Eternity

by Wolfling



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfling/pseuds/Wolfling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming back from the dead wasn't all it cracked up to be. Gabriel does a little dreamwalking though Sam's dreams while dealing with an identity crisis. Veers off from canon after 5.22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Name to Last For All Eternity

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Supernatural Reverse Big Bang and was inspired by this lovely artwork by Cybel:
> 
>  
> 
> The title comes from the lyrics of the song 15 Min Flame by Poets of the Fall.

Gabriel had never expected to be brought back to life by his Dad, but if he had, he never would have predicted it would be like this.... this emptiness. No pronouncements or punishments, or new orders, not even a face to face. Just him blinking back into existence in the same place where it had all ended, an empty ballroom in an abandoned hotel.

And really, he should be relieved about that, happy even. His life, such as it was, didn't have to change. He could continue doing what he'd been doing for milennia, roaming the Earth and playing the role of trickster and being anything but an archangel and God's Messenger. But somehow, after everything that had happened, that didn't hold the same appeal it had before.

Not that he wanted to go back to Heaven either. He'd changed in the time he'd been away and even if things were better now than they had been when he left, he knew it wouldn't be a good fit anymore. The fact that he hadn't been given an imperative to return made him think that Dad knew that and was merciful enough not to force it.

But that left Gabriel at something of a loss. He certainly wasn't the good archangel any more, and he couldn't be a trickster any more, not the way he had been. What he was now, what he should do... he didn't know, and wasn't sure how to figure out what the answer should be.

It was the kind of deep philosophical question that he always hated dwelling on. That much at least hadn't changed. So he did his best to ignore it.

It was simpler to concentrate on other things, like the fact that the impending apocalypse wasn't so impending anymore. It hadn't taken much effort to find out at least the broad strokes of what happened -- the entire supernatural world -- demons, angels, gods and others -- were all buzzing about it. The Winchesters had managed to not only open Lucifer's cage again -- and Gabriel would take some of the credit for that, given it had been his intel that had put them onto that plan -- but they'd manage to shove not only Luci, but Michael's ass into it.

Sam had been locked in with them as well, which had been one hell of a sacrifice to make, but it seemed Dad was really working that old resurrection muscle lately because He'd yanked Sam back out. Gabriel didn't even need to hear that through the grapevine, that piece of knowledge he'd just had when he'd awakened, and he wasn't looking too closely at the possible reasons for that either.

The grapevine did provide the fact that Sam had hooked back up with his brother and that the two Winchesters were on the road again hunting things that go bump in the night. For all intents and purposes, from an outside view at least, things were back to how they had been before, as if the Apocalypse had never threatened.

Must be nice, Gabriel grumbled. Here he was, an almost innocent bystander, and the Apocalypse, aside from killing him, left him with a complete identity crisis. While the human who arguably started -- and ended, he admitted grudgingly -- the whole thing just went back to his life, the whole thing a memory growing smaller in the rear view mirror. Stupid humans. Stupid Winchesters.

Still, Gabriel found himself wondering just how Sam had managed all that and couldn't help but want to check it out up close. He wasn't quite ready to try and track the Winchesters down in person -- the last couple of meetings had definitely left him worse for wear and he could do without a repeat of that. But when you had the powers of an archangel cum trickster there were ways and ways of checking people out. Gabriel decided he'd take the most direct one open to him -- he'd go eavesdrop on Sam's dreams.

The sigils that little brother Castiel had so thoughtfully carved on the Winchesters' ribs made them a bit harder to track down, but with patience and skill, one could manage it in the dreamworld. It took Gabriel maybe a night or two to finally do it -- which he was firmly blaming on the Winchesters' penchant to skip pesky things like sleep when off being do-gooder hunters -- but he did finally find that thread of sleeping Sam awareness and follow it back to his dreams.

And immediately discovered that maybe Sam wasn't exactly as over the apocalypse as Gabriel had thought he was.

Sam's dreams were, Gabriel was pretty certain, not really dreams so much as memories. He knew enough about Lucifer's punishment to recognize what had to be his brother's cage -- two of his brothers now. And more than that, he was intimately familiar with both Lucifer and Michael and the way they fought, ignoring any and all collateral damage they may cause while doing so. What Sam was dreaming about was exactly what would happen if you locked the two of them in a small confined space together with no way out.

Gabriel's first reaction was to flinch back, to want to disconnect and look away, to pretend that he hadn't just glimpsed the price Sam Winchester had paid to cheat destiny and stop the apocalypse. He didn't want to think about his brothers -- whom he still loved, even after everything -- stuck down there ripping each other apart. It was everything he didn't want to think about all laid out in front of him in technicolor and surround sound.

Still. He'd made a decision back when he'd confronted Lucifer. He was done being a coward and running from what scared him. So even though every fiber of his being cried out for him to flee and leave these nightmare memories to Sam alone, he didn't.

But he found he couldn't just sit back and watch either. It was just... way too much. Without thinking about it, Gabriel went from observer to participant, stepping into the dream and changing setting around him as he did so. He banished the visions of hell and replaced it with something less trauma inducing.

That was all he intended to do, and more than he had planned when he started out, just change the dream enough to give Sam a respite. But then something happened. Either he didn't move fast enough or being Lucifer's vessel had made Sam more aware of when archangels were messing about in his head, but unerringly Sam turned and looked right at Gabriel.

"What are you doing here?" he asked point blank.

And resolution to stand his ground or not, Gabriel found his nerve wasn't quite up to answering that question and he turned and fled.

*****

Sam expected the nightmares. One didn't get possessed by the devil and go to hell and come out the other side without expecting a few bumps along the emotional road, and really, if all he had to deal with now was a bunch of bad dreams and restless nights, he considered himself getting off really easy.

They came with amazing regularity, those nocturnal reminders of what things had been like down below, but Sam bore them with as much silent fortitude as he could manage. After all, at least now he only experienced them a few hours at a time when he slept, which was a damn sight better than still being locked in the cage like he could have been.

Should have been, even. He wasn't sure what -- or who -- had pulled him out and that worried him sometimes, but he wasn't about to look a gift miracle in the mouth. So he spent his days getting on with his life, hunting with his brother and his brother's angel, and was grateful of the chance to do so. If his sleeping hours was less than pleasant, well, things could be worse.

The dreams were remarkably similar every night, inspired by the memories of what it had been like down below, but always just different enough to keep them from becoming predictable. There was fire and ice, and pain and screaming and an unending darkness interrupted by flashes of light so bright it threatened to vaporize what was left of Sam. And that was when Lucifer and Michael's attention was focused on each other. When they remembered him, it was a million times worse.

Every night was another visit back, another taste of what he had somehow escaped. Every night until the one night it wasn't.

Sam fell asleep that night as usual, with the usual effort of will needed to hold himself in the bed and relax enough to drift off. And the dream started off much the same as it always had, with him in the cage and Michael and Lucifer tearing at each other with light and ice.

But then it changed. He went from unbearable light to a place so dark, the lack of light was almost a physical presence pressing down on him. He could hear someone moving about and braced himself, wondering what form this new torture would take.

There was a low rumble, like a distant truck going by, or a god's deep laughter. Thunder, Sam realized. And that was new as well -- there was no weather in the cage, nothing but the anger of two archangels being vented against each other.

But there it was again, another low rumble, this time sounding closer. And as if to confirm it, there was a few seconds later a brief flash of lightning -- sharp and bright, but not painful like the bursts of light that came off Lucifer and Michael. In fact, come to think about it, he couldn't really sense their presence at all. Maybe for once, the dream letting him out of the cage?

Another flash and Sam blinked, managing to get an impression of his surroundings. It wasn't the cage, wasn't anything that looked like hell at all.

It was a open field somewhere, with a myriad of stars in the sky above -- which was totally at odds with the lightning flashes, but dreams were like that sometime. It was quiet, peaceful, and full of a type of beauty and peace that Sam had known very little of in his life.

For a long moment he just stood where he was, and breathed in the night air, relishing the chance to do so, relishing any dream time where he wasn't back in Hell.

But as peaceful as it was, there was _something_.... A prickling at the back of Sam's neck, the type of feeling he only got when he was being watched. There was somebody -- something out there just beyond his ability to see.

With everything that he'd been through, the idea of someone actually messing around in his dreams was not one that Sam would tolerate at all. He reached out with all his senses and searched the night around him, until he thought he felt....

He spun around, eyes scanning the area of the field where the feeling was coming from. He caught at first just a glimpse of a slight figure, a shadow among shadows, but in the next flash of light he saw exactly who it was and froze in shock. Gabriel.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Sam thought he caught a flash of alarm pass over Gabriel's face and then in the next breath he was gone, and Sam was opening his eyes to stare at the cracked ceiling in his motel room instead.

He laid there for several long moments, trying to figure it out.

That was Gabriel. Or at least it had looked like Gabriel. But the archangel was supposed to be dead, killed by Lucifer when he finally decided which side he was on.

Of course 'supposed to be dead' could be said about practically everyone Sam knew, up to and including himself so that wasn't really the mitigating factor it should've been. Beyond that, Gabriel had a history of faking his death, so it was always possible he had never been dead in the first place.

Still, whether he'd been dead and come back or had been just pretending that left the sixty-four thousand dollar question -- why the hell was Gabriel poking around in Sam's head in the first place?

If Gabriel tried it again, Sam was determined to get an answer.

****

Gabriel really wasn't used to regret. Or at least not this kind. The kind where it was all on him and his actions. But ever since he'd pulled back -- or let's be honest here, fleed like a fleeing thing -- from Sam's dream, he'd been dealing with the unaccustomed feeling.

He hated that so soon after resolving to not be a coward anymore he'd turned tail and ran instead of dealing with something. More than that, he hated _why_ he'd ran. There was a good deal of shame to go along with that regret. He'd been practically jealous of Sam and how well he seemed to be coping with living in a post Apocalyptic world. Enough that he'd thought more than a few less than pretty thoughts about it. Then to see exactly what it was that Sam was dealing with, the horrors Sam seemed to just accept that he had to experience, it definitely was enough to shame him.

At least Gabriel had the reassurance that he had changed the dream when he had seen what Sam was going through, but that was all the more reason why he shouldn't have run away. He still wasn't sure exactly why he'd ran, other than what Sam had gone through and what he'd accomplished affected Gabriel in ways he wasn't sure he was up to facing quite yet. And, a tiny voice inside of him added though he tried his best to ignore it, that there was something about Sam himself that made him want to get closer than was probably wise.

If he was smart, he'd probably leave well enough alone and walk away from it all now. There was a whole world out there, he didn't have to keep poking his nose where the Winchesters were. But facing that whole world was at least as daunting a prospect. And hell, Gabriel hadn't made the smart choice, the safe choice, for a very long time. Why should he start now?

So it was only a few nights later that he once again stretched his awareness out until he found Sam's subconscious mind and slipped inside.

The dream Sam was immersed in looked at first glance the same as it had before -- the cage and Michael and Lucifer fighting like overgrown toddlers throwing a tantrum, and Sam caught in the crossfire. But there was subtle differences. Sam wasn't entirely folded up on himself protectively as if to shut everything out like he'd been last time. He was still curled into as small a target as possible but his head was exposed, as if he was watching for something.

Or someone. Like Gabriel.

No sooner had Gabriel even thought that than Sam's gaze seemed to focus on him. It was against all that logic and sense said was even possible if Gabriel didn't actually manifest in the dream, but Gabriel didn't doubt that he was actually being perceived, even before Sam gave a ghost of a smile that was at least half grimace and muttered, "Knew you'd be back."

Busted before he could decide whether he wanted to have a conversation or not, Gabriel gave in as gracefully as he could manage. He sighed and snapped his fingers, changing their dream locale to a moonlit beach.

Sam stayed curled up for a moment, as if leery to let go of his protective position, but slowly he stretched out and pulled himself up to his full height. "Guess I should say thanks for that," he said, eying Gabriel with a wary curiosity.

"No way we could make ourselves heard over Dumb and Dumber's battle royale down there," he said, turning to face Sam fully.

Another ghost of a smile touched Sam's lips. "Point." He turned and began walking down the beach, hands in his pockets. With nothing better to do, Gabriel followed, falling into step at his side.

"So you're not dead, huh?" Sam asked, after a moment's silence.

"Was," Gabriel admitted. "For real. But..." He shrugged. "I got better." He found himself strangely reluctant to go into details.

"Yeah, a lot of that seemed to be going around." Sam glanced sideways at him. "Did God....?"

"I think so. Kinda felt like him. But if it was, he didn't stick around to say hi." And he wasn't about to admit how much that hurt. Castiel wasn't the only angel who would like to talk to Dad. Instead, Gabriel tried to turn the spotlight back on his companion, even though he knew the answer. "You?"

Sam echoed Gabriel's earlier shrug. "I guess. Don't know. Whoever -- or whatever -- sprung me didn't leave a calling card."

"Then that definitely sounds like Dad." Gabriel snorted. "For an all powerful being he kinda sucks at communication. And considering I was his Messenger, I should know."

"Is that why you're here?" Sam asked, stopping and turning to face Gabriel. "To deliver a message?"

Gabriel snorted again. "Hardly. I gave up that gig a long time ago, kid."

He already had a good idea what Sam's next question was going to be and he wasn't proven wrong. "So... why are you here then? Not that I'm not grateful for the change of scenery, but why are you wandering around inside my dreams?"

Gabriel sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked out at the ocean. "That's the question, isn't it?" He glanced over his shoulder at Sam. "Would you believe me if I told you I really don't know?"

"Probably not," Sam admitted.

"Tough. 'Cause that's the answer." He waited for Sam to argue with him, to demand he explain himself, but the kid just stayed quiet. When Gabriel glanced up at him again, he found the human studying him intently. "What?" he demanded.

Sam shrugged. "If you're not going to tell me, I'm going to have to figure it out for myself."

"Oh for- Look, it's not that I'm not telling you. It's that there's nothing to tell! It was a whim, okay? I heard you had got sprung and were back to the whole do gooder hunting gig with your brother, but there weren't any details in the story and I'm a sucker for details. Figured I'd come, take a peek and see if I can get a clearer picture. That's all. No deep dark secret or destiny or anything. So will you please stop looking at me like that?"

Sam didn't stop. He just added a raised eyebrow. "So you just wanted to see what was happening in my head? Nothing more?"

Gabriel barely kept from flinging his arms out in a gesture of exasperation. "Didn't I just say that? What, did your brain suddenly stop understanding English or something?"

"If all you wanted to do was see what was going on, why did you yank me out of the nightmare? And why did you come back?"

Gabriel sputtered, but realized he didn't have any easy answers to that. "There's times I really hate you, y'know that?"

The faint smile Sam gave him didn't really lessen that feeling. "No you don't. Just answer the questions."

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Gabriel ran a hand through his hair in frustration. He just had to come back, didn't he? Couldn't leave well enough alone. No he had to suck it up and prove that he didn't run from things any more. "I don't know, okay?" he told Sam testily. "I mean, it would've been cruel of a level that's beyond me to just leave you there when I could change it with a snap. It was a momentary burst of empathy and compassion, okay? Even I get them some times. Don't let it go to your head."

Sam gave him a slight nod in acknowledgment. "Okay. I guess that explains last time. But you still haven't told me why you came back."

"I was bored?" Gabriel tried hopefully.

Sam didn't even deign to reply to that, just continued staring at Gabriel, now with a raised eyebrow.

Gabriel sighed again. "Look, I really don't know. I mean... okay, last time, when you spotted me, I ran. Like I've been doing for milennia whenever anything got too close or too much for me to handle. Except that one time."

"When you stood up to Lucifer," Sam murmured softly.

"Yeah," Gabriel acknowledged. "Fat lot of good it did me. Got me a serious case of the deads. But still... it felt good to not run. And, really, after everything, I'd like to think I'm done with running." He felt his mouth curl up into a half smirk. "At least for anything short of impending certain death."

"So you came back," Sam said slowly, "because you didn't want to run away."

"Basically, yeah," Gabriel said.

"Huh," Sam said mostly to himself. He stared at Gabriel as if trying to figure him out.

After a moment, Gabriel started to find the silence unnerving. "Good enough answer for you, kid?"

"For why you came back, yeah," Sam replied. "Course, you didn't tell me why you ran in the first place."

"You startled me, okay?" Gabriel replied grumpily. "I don't like things happening that I can't predict. And being dead can make a guy a little jumpy. I should think you'd understand that."

"Point," Sam said again. He fell silent again and for a few brief moments, both of them just looked out at the waves crashing against the shore. Gabriel was actually starting to relax and think it might not have been such a horrible idea to come back.

"I shouldn't have been able to sense you, should I?" Sam asked after a while. His voice was soft and conversational and didn't really disturb the peace that had descended on them both.

"Nope," Gabriel replied. "I'm really good at hiding -- been doing it against all comers for a very very long time." He turned his head just enough to make out Sam's profile in the moonlight. "But then again, you Winchesters seem to have made it your vocation to do things you're not supposed to. Starting with stopping the Apocalypse."

"We couldn't have done that without the info you gave us," Sam said. "So thank you for that."

"I may have provided the intel, but you're the one who did a Greg Louganis into Hell. I think you win for sacrifices here." It was still boggling Gabriel's mind a little that Sam had actually been able to do that.

Sam turned to fully face him again, searching his face for... Gabriel didn't know what. "I think we're pretty even on the sacrifice scale," he finally said. "What with the dying thing and all."

Yeah, there was that. "If you insist." They lapsed back into silence, this time lasting for what felt like a couple of hours.

Finally Gabriel stirred, sensing that Sam's sleep with lightening. "Think it's time I blow this popsicle stand, and let you wake up," he said. "Dean-o would totally blow a gasket if you start doing your best sleeping beauty imitation."

"Okay," Sam said, though he sounded oddly reluctant.

Gabriel nodded, raising a hand to snap himself away. "Wait!" Sam called out, reaching out a hand as if to stop him. When Gabriel paused he continued in a rush, "Are you going to come back?"

"You want me to?" Gabriel asked, surprised at the question.

"Yeah," Sam replied, looking a little uncomfortable at the admission. "I mean, I wouldn't mind if you dropped in again. This... well, it's a nice change from the usual. And not just because it's not Hell."

That last clarification made Gabriel smile. "Wouldn't you prefer a band of scantily clad dancing girls or something to me?" he asked.

"No, that would be Dean's idea of a good dream," Sam said, deadpan, but with a glint of humor in his eyes. "Really, I liked this. Even if all we really did was sit and watch the waves. So come back... please?"

Gabriel had enjoyed it too, more than he was going to admit. And now that he had an invite... "Well, since you said please," he drawled with an easy smirk. "Be seeing you around, kiddo. Promise." And with that he snapped himself away.

*****

"So I told him it was just because I wasn't having wall to wall nightmares any more and he threatened to kick my ass to Hell and back if I'm not telling him the truth. Then told me it was my turn to pick up dinner and not to stint on the bacon or onions," Sam said to Gabriel, relating the whole conversation he'd had with his brother earlier, before he'd fallen asleep for the night. It had been a little awkward, and Sam really hadn't known what to say, but such were the things Winchester bonding moments were made out of.

Gabriel made a disgusted face. "Seriously, the amount of onions Dean-o puts on everything, he's lucky Castiel doesn't actually need to breathe." They were sitting tonight in the _Café Américain_ from the movie Casablanca. It was an impressive replica from what Sam could remember about the movie. The kicker being that it -- and they themselves -- were even in black and white.

"Yeah, that's totally venturing into things I do not need to know about what my brother does when he's alone with his angel," Sam said primly. Sometimes the fact that Gabriel did not seem to know the meaning of Too Much Information made for conversations even more awkward than Winchester bonding time. "But really, that's all you've got to say?"

"What do you want me to say, Sam?" Gabriel asked, pouring them both a glass of what looked like very old, very expensive scotch. "I get why you're not telling Dean about these little tete a tetes. And really, if you're looking for someone to pass judgment on you for lying to your brother, you're looking at the wrong archangel. I've given up Judgment for lent."

"It won't be Lent for another six months," Sam pointed out.

Gabriel grinned. "Yeah, but it sounds better than saying I'm giving something up for Tuesday, don't you think?"

Sam rolled his eyes and took the glass of scotch Gabriel held out to him. "I probably should tell him," he said after taking a sip. It tasted as good as it looked like it would, dream scotch was like that. "We're not doing anything wrong after all."

"Then why don't you?" Gabriel asked, looking at him over the top of his own glass.

Sam thought about it, trying to sort out his feelings. He could clearly picture Dean's reaction, all scoffing disbelief, and almost certainly some anger. Dean never took well to being left out of the loop. Given some of the things that had happened in the past, Sam couldn't really blame him for that. And generally he did calm down again if you gave him enough time.

But the part Sam couldn't picture was his part. What he would say, how he would describe this.... whatever it was with Gabriel. And with that, came the realization why he was still reluctant to talk to his brother about it.

"What are we doing here, Gabriel?" he asked.

Gabriel frowned. "Talking about your family problems over a scotch?" he suggested.

Sam shook his head. "No, I mean generally. You keep coming and hanging out in my dreams. And I keep letting you. Why? It's not exactly normal..."

"I would've thought you'd have given up on normal a while back," Gabriel said with a snort.

He had a point, Sam admitted to himself. "Okay, granted, we're both probably poster boys for abnormal, but even for us.... Why are we doing this, Gabriel?"

If anything Gabriel's frown got deeper. "Do we have to have some kind of reason? Can't we be doing it just because? Like Mohammad climbing the mountain because the bear was there?"

"That's not really why though, is it?" Sam said, with quiet determination. A part of him was whispering to stop pushing and just let the whole issue rest. And yeah, pushing might be risking something that he had begun to value an awful lot, but he'd learned long ago that letting things just slide tended to make them blow up in his face later. So pushing it was.

"I really don't know, Sam," Gabriel said with a heavy sigh. "I like it -- hanging out with you here, talking, showing you some of the things I've seen. And I thought you were liking it too."

"I am," Sam said quickly, reaching over to lay a reassuring hand on Gabriel's arm. "Really. You did catch the part that I've been liking it so much that I'm sleeping more just to do it, right?"

That got him a ghost of a smile. "Yeah, you've turned into a regular narcoleptic," Gabriel teased.

"Not quite that bad or Dean wouldn't have let me brush him off with the non-answer I gave him," Sam said, though he admitted to himself he might have been starting to edge in that direction if he hadn't felt such a responsibility to Dean and their hunting.

"So if you like it and I like it, why do we need to poke at it?" Gabriel sounded almost plaintive and it made Sam sigh softly.

"Because if I can't explain what's going on to myself, how am ever going to be able to explain it to Dean or anybody else?"

Gabriel drained his glass and snapped it full again, raising it to look at the light through the liquid. "That means a lot to you?" he finally asked. "To be able to tell Dean about this?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't like hiding things that are important to me. Not from him. It always seems to end badly when I do."

Gabriel's gaze had slid back to Sam's face. "You think this -- us hanging out -- is important?"

"It feels like it, yeah," he replied nodding. "I just... I can't untangle what it is enough to talk about it."  
"It's a... respite," Gabriel offered after a moment. "With everything that's happened, everything we've been through, this is a break from all of it. A chance to catch our figurative breaths. Rest and recharge."

Sam rolled that over in his mind. It felt... well it felt right, but not entirely. "I guess," he said grudgingly. "But..."

"But?"

"Is that all? Is this just some kind of... of vacation from reality to you?"

Gabriel gave him a quick fleeting smirk. "Reality's always merely a suggestion when you're a trickster."

"But you're not," Sam replied, leaning forward towards Gabriel and putting his arms on the table. "You're an angel. You just pretended to be a trickster."

"True." Gabriel took another long drink, then admitted quietly, "Not sure if I'm an angel anymore either."

Sam frowned. "What?"

"Nothing." Gabriel waved it away with a lazy hand. "Too much scotch and thinking about the nature of reality. Gets me in trouble every time. I'd much rather just go with the flow. Until certain large humans decide to go all navel gazing on me."

There was definitely something deep happening under the surface there, something that Sam was aware his questions was disturbing. "Is that your way of asking if we can change the subject?" he asked, willing to let it drop for now. He would have to untangle his own issues before he'd really be capable of helping Gabriel with his.

That got him another smirk, only a little forced. "You know, you really are smarter than your average bear."

"If I'm Yogi, does that make you Ranger Smith?" Sam asked raising an eyebrow.

"Nah," Gabriel said, standing up and going over to the bar to grab another bottle of scotch. "Look around you. I'm Rick Blaine. And you're my loyal friend and piano player."

Of course. Sam rolled his eyes. "I don't play the piano."

"It's a dream, Sam. You could tap dance on the ceiling if you wanted to. Piano playing? That's a snap." He snapped his fingers along with the last word and Sam suddenly found himself seated in front of the piano in the corner of the room.

Sam could so see where this was going. "You're going to say it, aren't you?" he groaned.

Gabriel's grin turned supernova bright. "Course I am." He put on a really bad imitation of Humphrey Bogart and said, " _Play it again, Sam_!"

*****

Of course it had to start getting complicated.

Gabriel hated complicated. After all the machinations of the almost apocalypse and his death and rebirth, he just wanted simple. Wanted to have fun and not _think_ about anything else. And that was exactly what he'd been doing with Sam these last few weeks in the kid's dreams.

Until Sam decided he needed to poke at and analyze it and take it apart and suddenly the simple fun times were complicated too.

Stupid humans and their obsessive need to understand things.

And now, of course, since he started thinking about it, he couldn't stop. What was he doing, hanging out in a human's dreams? Even if the human was the one who stopped the Apocalypse. It should be something that was below him, a lark at best, something to just pass the time until the next big trick presented itself.

But the trade of trickster wasn't so appealing anymore, and he hadn't even really been looking for possible targets. He'd been focused instead on these meetings with Sam and trying to come up with new and different things to show him, new places to set the dreams in, new experiences for them to do together. And, if he was going to be brutally honest with himself, which if he wanted this mental meandering to get anywhere, he pretty much had to be, all of it he'd done just to see if he could get the kid to smile. Really smile.

It wasn't an expression he'd seen very often -- if ever -- on Sam's face in real life. Not the kind of smiles he'd been winning out of him in the dreams. These were full on grins that lit up his whole face, his whole being, making him as bright as Lucifer had been before he Fell.

And his laugh -- when it wasn't tinged with bitterness or cynicism or any of the other negative emotional chains that clung to them both, Sam's laugh was even better than his smile. When Gabriel could make him forget everything and just throw his head back and that laugh came out... it was some of the best music Gabriel had ever heard. He'd do a lot to make Sam laugh like that all the time.

But even when he wasn't actively trying to get the laugh or the smile, the times when they were just quiet and settled and existing together wherever it was Gabriel had snapped up for them this time, those were good too. Peaceful. And peace was something that had been in short supply for Gabriel for a very very long time. So long, he'd almost forgot what it felt like. But those times in Sam's subconscious, they were letting him rediscover the concept.

And the most important thing about the time he'd spent with Sam this way was he hadn't had to think about himself. What he was, what he should be, what he wanted to be. He didn't have to worry about whether he was angel or trickster or what. He was just Gabriel, and his only goal was to make his companion laugh.

It had made things seem a lot clearer. Even if it really was just hiding from the hard decisions.

Which, thanks to Sam's inquisitiveness, he was now having a much harder time doing.

But maybe it was for the best. He'd spent millennia running and hiding from his problems. He didn't want to fall back into old patterns, not that one at least. So he had to face the question and try to come up with an answer.

What was he now? Was he Loki? Pagan god and trickster extraordinaire, serving out just deserts to all those who deserved it and basically treating life like it was one long party? It had been who he was for a very long time and it might not fit perfectly any more, but there was still comfort in the thought of the role. It was one he knew how to play to a T.

Or was he Gabriel? Archangel of Judgment, Dad's Messenger, and all that that implied. He could go back to Heaven, he knew, especially now that Michael had been thrown into Time Out with Lucifer. The only one who really had the power to cause him real trouble would be Raphael and Gabriel had been dealing with his humorless brother a long time. He knew how to get around him.

But no, that still didn't feel right either. He liked Earth too much to leave it, he liked *people* too much. And one person in particular-

Oh.

Oh, _damn_.

Gabriel felt like hitting himself in the head. Was he really so out of touch with himself? With his feelings? How had he missed this?

 _Sam_. It was more than just liking to spend time with the kid, more even than enjoying making him laugh and smile. No, somehow, when Gabriel hadn't been paying attention, he'd gone and fell for the kid. He was in love with fucking Sam Winchester.

Gabriel looked up at the Heavens and glared, wondering if Dad was even paying attention. "If you are," he muttered, "I hope you're enjoying the show. Really Dad, couldn't you have just stuck to designing things like the platypus to prove you have a sense of humor?"

Not that Dad had anything really to do with *this*, Gabriel knew. Beyond bringing them both back of course. But no, this was all on him. He'd let his guard down enough and Sam had somehow all unknowing wriggled through it.

Fine. Gabriel was a realist. He could accept the facts when his nose was rubbed in them. He was in love with Sam Winchester. Great. Wonderful.

Like his life wasn't complicated enough already.

*****

Sam laughed at the size of the ice cream concoction that was placed in front of Gabriel. "Dude, dream or not, I can't believe you're going to eat that whole thing!"

Gabriel smirked and picked up a spoon. "Just watch me, big boy," he said with an eyebrow waggle before digging in.

Sam shook his head fondly and sighed as he tried his own, much more modest sundae. Things in these dream encounters had settled into a comfortable routine again, and Sam was letting himself just enjoy them. Dean had backed off with his questions and though he still occasionally gave Sam the hairy eyeball when he decided to take an extra nap or something, he didn't really seem all that concerned anymore. And, for once, Sam had decided not to go looking for trouble if it was refusing to manifest in front of him. Gabriel had called all of this a respite for both of them and Sam had decided to accept that that was what it was, and to be thankful for it.

It helped that Gabriel seemed to be trying to outdo himself with each dream, taking him to more and more amazing and outrageous locations. Last time it had been Paris, on top of the Eiffel Tower, where Gabriel had proceeded to do a rather complicated tap dancing routine on top of the railing, with a cry of 'Duncan McLeod, eat your heart out!' that had had Sam laughing so hard he'd had to lean on the railing to keep standing. And really, with dreams, experiences, like that, he would have been out of his mind to try and do anything other than just enjoy them.

This time, Gabriel seemed to have gone for something much more modest. They were in an ice cream parlor slash soda fountain, in what looked like fifties middle America, judging by the clothes on the other patrons. Sam didn't know this time if it was a real place Gabriel was reproducing or something pulled out of a movie or TV show. But in the end that didn't really matter much. All that mattered was that it was fun.

And, apparently, served ice cream sundaes considerably bigger than a breadbox, that if you were an archangel cum trickster you could eat at a rather shockingly alarming speed.

Gabriel paused in his single minded ice cream decimation. "You're looking at me like I'm a puppy who just did a particularly cute trick."

"Putting away that much ice cream that fast is definitely a trick," Sam replied. "Not sure how cute it is though. I'd think I'd probably describe it more as disturbing."

"You think this is a lot, you should see the amount of food that used to be consumed at Dionysus' shindigs," Gabriel said. "And the wine -- do not get me started on the wine. I'm surprised that there was never a recreation of the Great Flood only not with rain water. Really, don't get me started."

Considering what Sam knew about the god in question, he was quite happy to not know any details and quickly searched for a change of subject.

And Gabriel's speed eating had provided the perfect opening as even an archangel occasionally missed his mouth when he was eating at roughly 80 miles an hour.

"You've got something right..." Sam began gesturing at the bit of whipped cream that was clinging to Gabriel's cheek near his mouth. Gabriel looked back blankly at him for a moment so Sam leaned forward. "Here," he said, reaching out and brushing the whipped cream away with a gentle finger. Just helping out a friend to look like they actually had some table manners, that was all there was to it. But that wasn't all there was to Gabriel's reaction.

Gabriel froze, amber eyes going wide and then piercing Sam with a gaze far more intent than usual. It was very easy to get lost in those eyes and it made Sam feel... he wasn't exactly sure actually. Other than uncomfortable and he fought the urge to shift in his seat.

"What did you do that for?" Gabriel asked after a moment, voice softer and more serious than Sam had heard him in a long time.

"What?" It took Sam a few seconds to remember anything beyond Gabriel's eyes. "Oh. Right. The..." He lifted his hand, but dropped it again before he could do anything like repeat the movement. "You had whipped cream on your cheek. I was just getting rid of it for you."

If anything Gabriel seemed to deflate a little at the explanation, but only for a second. Then the intensity in his gaze seemed to ratchet up even higher, pulling Sam in even as he leaned forward with the tiniest hint of a smirk. "Is that all?"

Sam found himself unwilling to look away. There was something going on here; something about to happen that felt... monumental. World changing. He swallowed and asked, voice a little hoarser than usual, "What do you mean?"

"There's plenty of ways to point out I missed my mouth using words, or even just tossing a napkin at me," Gabriel said. "That wasn't what you picked. You picked the option that involved touching."

Sam shrugged. "I'd do the same thing for Dean."

"No you won't," Gabriel said, smirk getting stronger. "Oh, okay maybe you'd wipe his face off, but not the same way. Not with the same subtext."

Sam felt his forehead crinkle in his confusion. "What subtext?"

Gabriel full out grinned at him. "You tell me kiddo. What's floating around in your subconscious that you're not telling me."

"Considering that this is my dream, you are," Sam replied which made Gabriel throw his head back and laugh. "Okay, come on, let me in on the joke. What's so funny, Gabriel?"

"That might be a truer answer than you know," Gabriel managed after he had calmed down a little, though he was still smiling. "In more ways than one."

Sam sighed and shook his head. "I hate it when you get cryptic," he complained. It was hard enough to keep up with the archangel's conversation when he wasn't trying to be clever. "Are you going to tell me what you're talking about?"

Instead of answering with words, Gabriel gave Sam a look that made his stomach do a weird flip, then leaned across the table and pressed his lips against Sam's.

Time seemed to slow down -- which considering this was a dream wasn't out of the question -- for Sam as he sat there frozen in shock letting Gabriel kiss him. He should pull away, he knew, should demand what the hell Gabriel thought he was doing, but instead he just sat there, not moving, getting kissed by an archangel.

Finally, an instant or an eternity later, Gabriel pulled back with a sigh and a soft smile. "Something like that," he said, answering Sam's almost forgotten question.

"Huh," Sam managed, feeling... well feeling a lot of things. He really wasn't sure if he wanted to catalog all of them just then.

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. "'Huh'?" he repeated. "That's it? No demands to know what the hell do I think I was doing? No earnest explanations that you don't swing that way? No accusations that I got archangel cooties all over you?"

The last bit actually surprised a breath of laughter out of Sam. "There's archangel cooties?"

"Not that I know of, but it seems like the sort of thing you Winchesters would accuse me of," Gabriel said, eying him thoughtfully. "Are you really being this calm or did I just put you into shock."

"I'm not shocked," Sam said after a moment, searching his feelings first to make sure it was the truth. "Surprised a little, yeah. I mean, who wouldn't be? But no, not shocked."

Gabriel cocked his head to the side. "Why?"

It took a bit longer for Sam to come up with the answer to that one. "I think," he began slowly, reflectively, "that I knew we were heading in this direction for a while now. What was it you said? It's been in the subtext all along."

Gabriel smiled a little and gave him an affectionate look. "You, Sam Winchester, are constantly surprising me. You never react like you're supposed to, do you?"

"How am I supposed to be reacting?" he asked.

"Well I was expecting some kind of freakout, really," Gabriel told him. "Not this whole sitting there thing, being all calm and bemused. I just kissed you, after all. Shouldn't that make you feel something?"

"I do," Sam said, feeling himself get steadier and more certain the longer the conversation went on. He shrugged a little and said, "I liked it."

Gabriel's eyes narrowed. "And if I said I wanted to do a whole lot more than just kiss you?"

Sam's stomach did that funny little roll again, and he realized where he'd felt it before -- with Jessica when he first realized he was in love with her. He was, he thought ruefully, sometimes very slow on understanding his own feelings.

But he got there in the end. Grinning, he reached across the table, grabbed Gabriel's jacket and pulled him closer. "I'd say what are you waiting for?"

Gabriel's eyes went comically wide for a moment then he grinned and snapped his fingers and Sam suddenly had a lapful of very enthusiastic archangel. Things got rather busy after that, but the nice thing about dreams was that the ice cream was still waiting for them unmelted when they finally got back to it.

*****

The way things were going, Gabriel thought he should be happy.

And he was -- ever since the unresolved sexual tension between himself and Sam became resolved sexual tension, these dream encounters had got a whole lot more interesting than they were before. It was amazing how a little nakedness could spice up so many situations.

Yes, Gabriel was enjoying himself with Sam, giving as well as taking pleasure, and trying to come up with new and different situations in which they could have sex. Sam seemed to be enjoying it just as much, and was appearing a lot less bent out of shape at some of Gabriel's wilder ideas and stories than Gabriel would've expected. Kid had a wild side, even if he rode herd on it most of the time.

The rest of their relationship was also going smoothly; Gabriel continued to try and outdo himself showing Sam the most amazing historical and fictional locations he could think up, and getting a kick out of Sam's reaction to all of them.

And in the real world, things were calming down even more, the calm of exhaustion after the storm maybe, but Gabriel wasn't going to look a gift lull in the mouth. If things were quiet, he didn't have to feel guilty for still hiding out.

So, all in all, things were going just swimmingly. Except....

Except that ever now and then Gabriel would catch a certain look in Sam's eyes, a yearning, a questioning, but the human never voiced it. And it was always quickly hidden, pushed aside for an outrageous request or initiating something physical that would quickly distract Gabriel from following up on what he'd thought he saw. Except it had happened a few times now and the accumulation was harder to ignore.

Gabriel wasn't 100 per cent sure what the yearning look was for, but he thought he could make an educated guess. The fear that he was correct had kept him up till now from pushing the issue. Because he wasn't sure what he could say if -- when -- Sam told him that these dreams weren't enough any more.

Even worse was the part of Gabriel buried way deep down that kept whispering that as wonderful as these dreams were, they weren't going to be enough for him either. Not for much longer. And that was a very very scary thought because the idea of doing anything in actual reality was still one that he was doing his utmost to avoid having to think about or deal with.

He was handling it the way he always seemed to handle things that he thought might break him if he looked too closely -- by completely ignoring them and doing everything in his power to pretend they didn't exist.

He just didn't know how long it was going to keep working.

*****

"Are you sure we have to wear these masks?" Sam asked, turning the one he held over and over in his hands with a less than enthusiastic look on his face. "I mean, it's not like it's going to stop me standing out in a crowd." He gestured down at himself.

They were standing on one of the many bridges in Venice of the past, during the absolute heyday of the Venice Carnival. Gabriel had provided them both with period costumes so that they could pretend to blend in, but Sam was balking at the mask.

"Yeah, I know. You Gigantor. Rawr. The Venitians'll just think you're some kind of barbarian visiting. A Celt, maybe." Gabriel smiled a little at the image of Sam dressed in the traditional Celtic warrior garb of weapons and woad and not much else. Definitely he'd have to plonk them into a dream sometime soon where that would be the proper dress code.

"That smirk always makes me nervous," Sam observed wryly. "As it usually ends up with me in a compromising position in public."

"I haven't heard any complaints," Gabriel replied. "Well, _real_ complaints. You do like to get your bitch on, I'll give you that."

"Yes because it's not like I have reasons or anything," Sam snarked back. He sighed and pulled the mask over his face. "How do I look?"

"Like a really big guy wearing a mask and a silly costume," Gabriel responded truthfully. "In other words, perfect for the Venice Carnival." He pulled his own mask on. "Shall we go mingle?"

"Sure," Sam said, reaching out and grabbing onto Gabriel's wrist as he started to lead the way towards the Piazza San Marco where crowds were gathering. "Just... a little warning if you're going to get frisky."

"Now where's the fun in that?" Gabriel said, pouting even if it couldn't be seen behind the mask. Then he thought about it, snapped his fingers and made the mask pout too.

"Okay, now that's just creepy," Sam observed.

"Nah, it's awesome," Gabriel countered, the mask echoing his smirk now.

He heard Sam snort laughter. "You're not real good at this whole wearing a mask thing, are you?"

"Depends on the mask," Gabriel replied, meaning it to be more snark, but it somehow coming out a lot more serious than that. And thinking of what mask he should be wearing was suddenly way too close to the main dilemma he'd been wrestling with since he came back from the dead. He stifled a sigh, irritated at himself that he was letting his focus wander to it around Sam.

Sam, being far from stupid, picked up on it immediately. "Gabriel?" he asked, voice going softer and into concerned puppy mode.

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Really."

"Your mask is still copying your expression," Sam pointed out. "And that doesn't look like it's nothing."

Dammit. He snapped his fingers again to stop that particular trick.before answering. "Okay, it's not nothing. It's just something you can't really help me with."

"Are you sure about that?" Sam asked.

"Pretty sure," Gabriel replied. "I just... I'm having trouble figuring out some things. Not sure if they will even really translate."

Sam cocked his head and Gabriel could feel his gaze almost like a touch. "Are we talking about the same thing that's keeping you pretty much stuck in my dreams?"

"Yeah." He could've lied, but really, he was beginning to think there was very little point. For all his masks and for all that Sam was only human, he was damned good at reading between Gabriel's lines.

Sam didn't say anything more, just loomed in that gigantor way of his, silently Waiting with a capital W. It was obvious he wasn't going to ask again, but just as obvious he was going to do his best to out-wait Gabriel's stubbornness here.

And dammit, for all that he was millennia old and had outlasted more things and people than he cared to think about, Gabriel found himself caving after a distressingly short time. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" he said, glaring at Sam behind his mask.

"Takes one to know one," Sam shot back. "That mean you going to tell me what's been bothering you?"

"I suppose so," Gabriel grudgingly said with a sigh. "I mean it's either that or turn you into a yak, and yaks smell bad enough I don't want to deal with one even in your dream so..."

"Good. Because I don't want to be a yak even in my dream," Sam replied, then leaned back against the railing of the bridge they were on.

Waiting.

"I could just wake you up," Gabriel pointed out.

"And I could just pick up where we left off the next time I fall asleep," Sam said smoothly. "Look, Gabriel, I can tell that there's been something bothering you since... well since you first yanked me out of my Hell cage nightmare. And I get that sometimes you don't want to talk about things -- I mean you have met my family, right?" He leaned in closer to Gabriel, reaching out and laying a hand on his arm. "But ever since we've... y'know. Got together, it's changed. It's like whatever it is is sitting just behind your eyes and keeping you from really enjoying it like you should. I just want to help. Please?"

And that really was what broke through Gabriel's defenses like nothing else had. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair above the mask he still wore, knowing he was going to talk. "I really don't think you can, that anyone can -- well 'cept maybe Dad -- but. Okay."

He took a few moments of silence to gather his thoughts and think about how to explain this thing that he'd been doing his best to deny was even happening. "So Dad created me as an archangel, me and my brothers, and that was all I knew in the beginning. All I needed to know. I had Him, I had my brothers, and my purpose. I knew who and what I was. The archangel of Judgment Dad's Messenger. Things were good.

"Then Lucifer threw his epic tantrum to end all tantrums and everything went to hell -- some more literally than others. And things weren't so good anymore. I stayed as long as I could, but things had changed -- I had changed. I just couldn't..." He broke off, shaking his head, remembering how horrible those last days he spent in Heaven were before he'd finally ran. "So I left. And to stay gone I had to remake myself. Had to be anything but an archangel. And I became Loki. No longer an archangel but a trickster. I still was able to Judge and deliver the Message when it was needed, but it was different. The Message was different too. It was a hard adjustment to make, and it took a long time before I stopped feeling like I was just playing a role and became Loki for real."

He stopped and looked down into the canal water, at the moonlight and torches reflecting off its surface. "Then you and your brother came into the picture, and the whole Apocalypse ball got rolling and suddenly, after all that time, I had to be the archangel again. And I really didn't want to be." He turned his head just enough to look up at Sam. "You might have noticed that.

"And then Kali outted me to all the other gods and Luci showed up and...." Gabriel gave a half shrug. "Well you know how that ended. I wasn't happy about dying -- especially about being killed by my own brother -- but as things went... At least I went out having made a stand I could be proud of. And," he added softly, "I don't know if I would've been able to kill Lucifer if he hadn't killed me first anyway. And let me tell ya, there's nothing that proves how right you are about your family being totally fucked like your brother killing you." He knew he was still dancing around the whole issue instead of actually coming out and saying it, but it was hard. To find the words, to actually say them. It made the whole thing all the more real.

He'd fallen silent again, long enough for Sam to speak. "I'm sorry that happened to you. Seems like one thing Dean and I are really good at is getting people who side with us killed."

"Wasn't your fault," Gabriel replied quickly. "I mean, yeah you two made me wake up and realize I couldn't really keep hiding my head in the sand like some kind of cosmic ostrich, but. the whole death thing? Not your fault. I think it always was going to come down to that, really. After everything that happened it had to be the way the Archangel Gabriel's story ended."

"But it didn't end," Sam reminded him gently. "You're here." He paused uncertainly. "Unless you're not really real and you're about to tell me this has all been a trick my subconscious has been playing on me. Please tell me you're not."

"Wow, way to be paranoid, Sam," Gabriel observed. "I'm really here. Really, would your subconscious be able to come up with some of the places I've shown you?"

"Okay, good." Sam nodded his head, and seemed to relax a little. "Had me scared I was going crazy there for a moment."

"Oh you Winchesters are crazy, I don't doubt it," Gabriel said. "I'm just not a delusion brought on by your crazy." He paused and then added in a quick rush, "I'm not sure what I am any more."

Sam, perceptive boy that he was, immediately seemed to grasp that that was the important statement Gabriel had been dancing around. "So that's what this is about?" he asked, cocking his head to the side and Gabriel could picture the earnest concerned expression that was almost certainly hiding behind Sam's mask right now. "You're having an identity crisis?"

"You make it sound so mundane," Gabriel complained, even as something inside him relaxed a little at the way Sam was reacting to the revelation.

Sam gave a half shrug. "You're not the first solider who found himself at loose ends after the war ends. I mean, I sorta felt like that too when I came back."

Gabriel shook his head vehemently. "It's not the same thing. Yeah, you had the whole being drenched in nightmares thing, but no matter what kinds of doubts you had you still knew you were Sam Winchester. Hunter. Brother. And all that stuff. You still had a purpose, an identity. I have no idea who I am any more, Sam."

Sam moved closer to him, looming right over him. Which bizarrely felt a lot more comforting than it should. "Don't you?" he asked, in a tone of voice one would use with a wild animal about to bolt.

"No," Gabriel replied, shaking his head. "I'm not a trickster anymore. Even if my cover wasn't blown, I don't think I could go back to being Loki and doing the kinds of things I used to. It would just seem... petty somehow. Like a waste of what Dad's given me bringing me back to life. But I can't be the archangel I was, either. There's no way I'm stepping foot back in heaven. I can't. It's changed too much -- I've changed too much. I think it would break my heart into a million pieces if I tried. So I'm not a trickster and I'm can't be an archangel... it leaves me kind of short an identity." He shrugged helplessly. "And with the apocalypse stopped, it should be a blank slate. I know I should be being freaking full of hope and new beginnings and all that, but truthfully? It scares me almost as bad as facing down Luci did. I've got the whole world laid out in front of me, all I have to do is reach out and take it, but I have no idea what to do with it."

Sam reached out and rested a hand on Gabriel's shoulder, fingers brushing the ends of his hair as they slid up to the edges of the mask to caress his skin, before he gently pulled the mask off. "You know for a being as powerful and as long lived as you are, you can be pretty dense sometimes," he told Gabriel, fond amusement in his voice.

Gabriel frowned. "Huh?"

"You ever heard the saying the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? That's you. Yeah, you're an archangel, but I've met a few of them now and I have to say, you're the only one who I can even remotely stand. In fact, I'm pretty damned fond of you. I don't know if that streak of mischief and love of bad jokes and candy is because you were a trickster or if being a trickster was the perfect role for you because you love bad jokes and candy and have a streak of mischief that's wider than the Grand Canyon. But if I had to guess, I'd go with the latter." Sam pulled his own mask up and held Gabriel's gaze with one full of belief and love as he continued. "I can see all those parts when I look at you, but there's so much more there too. You want an identity? You're _Gabriel_. Not Gabriel the archangel or Gabriel the trickster. But both of those and more besides."

Sam barely gave him time to adsorb that and the emotional reeling it engendered before he was continuing. "And if it's a purpose, something to do, that you think you're having problems finding, I hate to break it to you, but you're already doing something. It might just be in my dreams but what you've done for me, and what we've done together... it's helped. More than I can express. I don't know how much longer I would've been able to hold it together if you hadn't shown up.

"And I'm not just talking about _us_ though if you need a descriptive title, _mine_ works for me. What we've done here, it's helped me heal, far more than I ever thought I would be capable of. And that's something you could do for a lot of others if you wanted to. Minus all the naked stuff, I hope." He shook Gabriel's shoulder a little, wearing something that was very similar to Gabriel's own smirk. "So while you've been angsting over finding a purpose, getting a life, whatever you want to call it, you went out and got one without even noticing. You're almost as bad as a Winchester."

For a long moment, Gabriel couldn't do anything more than stare at Sam. That whole speech had really not been what he'd been expecting, and he knew he'd be poking at it and turning it over in his mind for a long while. But there was one thing that he felt he had to address right away. "Mine?" he repeated, lifting an eyebrow.

Sam, of all things, blushed a little at that. "Well... yeah. If you want to be. You and I... it's good. Real good. I haven't felt this way about anyone for a long time and...." He shrugged, blush deepening. "I'd like to keep it. Keep you."

Gabriel reached up and tugged Sam down to him so he could kiss him with everything he had. "Mine," he said again, with satisfaction, this time it being very clear that it was a declaration.

Sam chuckled. "Yeah." There was considerable more kissing and other things then and Gabriel was sure that Sam would grumble at him later for it all happening on ostensibly a public bridge, even if it was all in his head.

*****

"Are you even listening to me Sam?"

Sam shook himself and looked apologetically at his brother. "I'm sorry, what?"

Dean sighed. "I'm getting really tired of finding out I've been having conversations with myself, here."

"Sorry," Sam repeated with a grimace. "I know I've been a little out of it lately. I just...."

This got him the worried big brother expression. "I noticed you haven't been sleeping as well lately. Nightmares back?"

"No," Sam said. "It's just..." He trailed off, not sure how he could explain that he was distracted because the archangel who had been sharing his dreams had suddenly gone AWOL. At least without having to have a very long, very exasperating conversation that would surely delve into TMI territory.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, with a nod, happy to have a question he could answer honestly without any hedging. "Just distracted by some.... stuff. I'll try to pay better attention, I promise."

Dean stared at him for a moment longer before seeming satisfied. "Well, like I was saying when you were off daydreaming, I'm going to pick up dinner after I talk to that undertaker. You want the usual?"

"That's fine," Sam said. "I'll keep going through what we've got, see if I can figure out what we're dealing with."

"Back in an hour then." Dean grabbed his coat and keys and headed out.

For the next ten minutes or so, Sam mostly succeeded in concentrating on his research, his mind wandering to Gabriel only five or six times. That's when the knock on the door came.

"Landshark!" A very familiar voice called out.

Sam's eyes widened and he was across the door to open it in two seconds flat.

Sure enough, there stood Gabriel leaning on the door jamb and smirking up at him. "Really, Sam? Hasn't anyone taught you that you never open a door to a landshark?"

Sam stared for a long moment then reached out to pull Gabriel into the motel room. "It's you!" He started to hug him, but paused as a thought occurred to him. "I'm not... am I dreaming?"

Gabriel finished the movement that Sam had paused in, wrapping his arms around Sam's waist. "Nope. Wide awake. This is me, in the flesh. Miss me?"

"Yes, of course!" Sam said, even as he soaked up the feeling of having Gabriel pressed against him again. "But... how- why-"

"The why-- After our little talk in Venice, I did some more thinking and decided you were right," Gabriel replied, smiling up at him. "Don't let it go to your head. So I figured it was time I left the dream world and started trying to make a name for myself again in the real world. As to how, well I dropped in on Castiel and bugged him until he told me where you and Dean were." His smile turned a little wicked. "Somehow I knew he would be the go to guy on that."

That also explained the strange -- well stranger than usual -- look Cas had given him the last time he dropped by. "But... that dream was three weeks ago," Sam pointed out. He stopped himself from going into how worried he'd been in that time, but Gabriel wasn't above cheating with the mind-reading apparently.

"I'm sorry, kiddo, I really am," Gabriel told him with an expression so earnest it almost made Sam nervous. "I needed to get a few things straight in my own head first and then I needed to see if I could do this -- be a do-gooder like you think I can. So I had to go save someone."

That was intriguing enough for Sam to forget about the radio silence. "Did you?"

Gabriel smiled, raised a hand and snapped, then held out the newspaper that appeared in his hand. "Read for yourself."

Sam quickly scanned the headlines and main article which was all about a little girl who had been trapped down an abandoned mine shaft getting rescued. How the place had been so old and decrepit that it had caved in while she was still down there, but how the rubble had miraculously formed an air pocket around her. How, somehow she'd managed to crawl her way out all by herself and how the rescuers had found her curled up asleep, dirty but uninjured on the ground by an air vent..

And how when she'd woke up, she'd been in surprising good spirits. She'd talked about how her friend Gabe kept the rocks from crushing her and had told her stories and shown her tricks to keep her spirits up. And how he'd picked her up, snapped his fingers and they'd been on the surface. How he had promised her she'd be okay and that her Daddy was coming to get her, and how Gabriel had given her a night light so she wouldn't be scared.

"So, okay, yeah, maybe I am still an angel," Gabriel said grudgingly but with a peaceful smile when Sam was finished reading. "But don't get any ideas. I'm by no stretch of the imagination fluffy."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Sam promised, then continued trying for his most casual tone,"So, does this mean you're going to be heading back to Heaven....?"

Gabriel actually snorted. "Hardly. Haven't you heard? That place is full of dicks!" His smile turned a little uncertain, a little hopeful as he added, "I was thinking I might hang around with you and your brother for a while, if that's okay. I mean I'm still new at this whole do-gooder gig and you two have it down pat, even if it does make you act like idiots half the time-"

"Gabriel," Sam said, raising his voice enough to override the archangel's. He grinned and said, "Quit while you're ahead."

"Right," Gabriel said good-naturedly. He looked around the motel room thoughtfully, then waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Sam. "Does being ahead include sex? Behind closed doors out of the public eye, I might add."

Sam chuckled. "That will be a change. But yeah," he said, beginning to back Gabriel up in the direction of his bed. "I think it should definitely include sex. Consider it positive reinforcement for a job well done."

Gabriel chuckled as he flopped down on the bed pulling Sam with him. "Get to reinforcing then, Winchester."

Sam did and got so involved that he forgot he hadn't put the chain on the door and that his brother was due back in an hour until he heard the door open.

"Hey Sam, they had fresh pie too so I got you a- Oh _God_ , my eyes!"


End file.
